On Christmas Night, we had an unexpected guest,
Took nearly an hour of coaxing the boy to the house (yes, Odetta was used as bait), and then trying to get him to come farther into the house than just his front half, I did finally manage to shut the sliding door behind him. Only then could I get a look at his tags, only to find he had just the rabies tag & no ID of any sort. So, going on the general humane assumption that he might’ve gotten out and that any decent family would be horribly upset to lose their dog on Christmas Day, we kept him overnight, and the Animal Control folks picked him up in the morning. By that point I’d figured out he was between 9mos and a year (roughly), was about 5-10 lbs underweight, had been out most of the day (paws were slightly raw but not completely), possibly had ear mites, and a few guests of his own, ugh, but nothing ferocious.
I checked on him at the pound the next day, and filled out paperwork to adopt in case the pound couldn’t find the family before the three stray-dog days were up — what if they were out of town, and it was a neighborhood kid who’d let the dog get out? That sort of thinking… but by yesterday, when I went by the pound again to let them know our one reprobate (Kiku) would get her updated rabies shot on Wednesday (required for us to adopt the guest), the pound had gotten in touch with the registering vet, who gave them name & number for the owning family. Number was disconnected, so… as far as the pound’s concerned, they did due diligence, and now the guest is up for adoption and we’re listed as the adopting family.
That is, once he gets chipped, snipped, dipped, checked out and generally poked and prodded. Most likely he’ll be coming home sometime late this week, although there may be delays thanks to the holidays (and the number of volunteer vets therefore on vacation).
I didn’t take any pictures while he was here, since it seemed a bad idea to get attached to an animal that might have a worried family somewhere — so the only shot I have is of the poor boy once he got to the pound. He’s rather quiet, definitely understands the pecking order, and other than some over-enthusiastic boy-ness towards Odetta and Sachiko, he’s generally a quiet, calm thing. I expect he’ll shake that off once he’s comfortable, and end up being a well-adjusted, cheerful boy, especially since he did spend some time bonding to me once he’d had a good six or seven hours to get used to the pack’s routine.
Names are still up in the air. I’ve been forbidden from naming him Bozo — it wasn’t planned, it just started as “boy” and then segued through “buddy,” “buster,” and then into “bozo” when he was especially hard-headed, like in trying to teach him to sit. Stubborn on the haunches, there, but he seemed to be picking it up after a few hours of hearing it every now and then. (Probably doesn’t help that Sachi interprets every single command, regardless of signal or sound, as “lay down with great enthusiasm!” — that is, “throw yourself on the floor and hope for a treat!”)
Current possibilities include Bazi (bah-zeh, not bay-zey), and a few others I can’t recall right this minute. Mostly variations on “fortunate” — fortunate boy, fortunate day, that sort of thing. It’s the ‘buh’ sound of ‘ba’ that mimics the ‘buh’ of buster, even if that’s not really a consonant I saw the dog react to — just that, as CP pointed out, the dog looks like a Buster. Pity the vet couldn’t be bothered to tell the pound what the dog was listed as, because it would’ve been nice to have some idea of what sound the dog’s used to.
Alternately, I may end up doing the same thing I did to name Kiku — spend a week just repeating the alphabet out loud and waiting to see which sound makes her perk up her ears.
ETA: We’ve already determined that Mr. Guest will require his own toys, especially after Sachiko spent the entire time making it clear that Orange Monkey and Stripey Bear were her toys, and don’t you dare play with them. Sigh. Poor boy took it with a great deal of worried acceptance, the usual grace of one who knows he’s on the bottom of the pecking order. Hell, even the toys Sachiko normally ignores were Not Okay For Sharing — as soon as I brought them out, Sachi took them back.
Unh-hunh, and they say animals don’t show human emotions like jealousy.
Tagged: horde of hyenas